Subriel Matias Calls Teofimo Lopez A ‘Coward’ – ‘He Can Fight Me’
The IBF junior welterweight champion Subriel Matias has hit out at Teofimo Lopez after talks over a fight broke down.
Reports indicated that both men were in talks to fight during Super Bowl week. But Matias’ hand injury prevented the negotiations as Lopez moved on. The Takeover will now face Jamaine Ortiz as he defends his WBO junior welterweight title for the first time. Lopez secured the belt with a comprehensive victory over Josh Taylor to become a two-division champion.
His decision to face Ortiz has been criticized. Ortiz is moving up from 135 pounds to have his first fight at 140. His best performance was arguably against Vasiliy Lomachenko in a fight where he ultimately lost. After being linked with the Ryan Garcia fight, Lopez’s choice of opponent has been scrutinized as an ‘easier’ fight. Talks with Subriel continued with reports they could fight in the summer on The National Puerto Rican Day Parade weekend in June, but nothing has materialized. Now Matias has slammed Lopez’s team over avoiding a fight.
Matias On Lopez
“He’s a coward. He says that he’s offered to fight me and he knows the reason why he made that offer is because I recently fought and I won’t be ready and prepared for that fight. If he’s a man of his word, then he will take the fight with me. And a message for his dad, stop talking so much s**t. If he wants to fight me, he can fight me. There’s dates there, there’s April, March, if he wants to face me, stop being a coward. Stop talking s**t and make sure that he’ll face me,” Matias said
Matias has also been on bad terms with Devin Haney’s team. Bill Haney recently suggested that Matias was ducking his son. This was after claims that team Haney made Matias an offer to fight in a unification after Haney’s win over Regis Prograis.
Nothing materialized in that regard, as Bill alleged Matias had priced himself out of the fight. There were suggestions that he required $4 million to take the fight, which was not feasible. In return, Matias’ team denied anything of the sort. His team claimed they had not been contacted by anyone from team Haney, leaving both sides with a different narrative.
Matias Vs. Haney
“I gave Peter Kahn a call about it. He didn’t sound too much boogeyman to me, at four million dollars ($4,000,000). I called him and said, “Devin said let’s talk.’ He said the kid wants four million so I waited about 30 minutes and called him back. He said, ‘No really, the kid wants four million dollars,” Bill Haney stated
“Subriel Matías’ team has not received any calls about negotiations to face Devin Haney. Peter Kahn has NOTHING to do with Subriel Matías. Promoter Juan Orengo and Matías’ manager, Pedro Cruz are the only representatives of ‘Orgullo De Maternillo,” Pedrito Cruz (Matias manager)
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